USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume II > Part 43
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65 In the year 1845 the commissioners of the town were involved in a controver- sy with Mr. Matthew Spencer, then teaching at Princess Ann, respecting a bell which had been purchased by subscriptions of the citizens, including Mr. Spen- cer himself, and which was used for calling Mr. Spencer's school, as well as for purposes other than educational. This controversy was of a most extraordinary, ridiculous and scurrilous character. It gave to Mr. Spencer the opportunity for indulging his favorite and most characteristic vein of satire and ridicule and giving vent to his spleen against the people of the town who had not shown, as he thought, a proper appreciation of his merits as a teacher. It gave to the citizens, through their representatives, the opportunity to be revenged upon Mr. Spencer, who had long delighted in ridiculing in his own inimitable way their peculiar habits, their social customs, their lack of culture, their humble avocations, and even their origin and religion. This controversy, conducted at first in the news- papers and afterwards in hand bills, is too personal and ribald to be admittted into this contribution, but it is exceedingly amusing, and illustrative not only of the mental traits of the accomplished and eccentric man who took the principal part but of the life that was lived by the citizens of Saint Michaels at the date of its appearance.
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reorganization of the public schools of the county and towns under the general school law of the same year, when a new impulse was given to popular education. Graded schools were here established and the foundation laid for a High School which however was not organized until the revised state law went into operation. The following memo- randa kindly furnished by Alexander Chaplain, Esq., School Examiner, give the names of the teachers of this school and the dates of their ap- pointment :
St. Michaels High School opened Monday, Sept. 19, 1870. Teachers: Principal, George E. Haddaway; Assistant, Mary E. Orr.
Miss M. Emma Wrightson succeeded Miss Orr as assistant teacher in September, 1872.
The High School occupied the new rooms provided for it on Wednes- day, the 25th of March, 1874, with George E. Haddaway as principal, Miss M. Emma Wrightson as first assistant, and Thomas J. Warren as second assistant.
Thomas J. Warren resigned as second assistant October 20, 1874, and was succeeded by Miss Alice McDaniel, who was the first graduate of the school.
George E. Haddaway resigned as principal, and his connection with the school closed on the 15th day of July, 1878.
He was succeeded by A. Stuart Marye.
Miss Ann Margaretta Tilghman succeeded Miss Wrightson as first assistant in September, 1879.
A. Stuart Marye resigned as principal March, 1880, and was succeeded by Edward Reisler.
Miss Ann Margaretta Tilghman resigned as first assistant, and Miss Alice McDaniel was promoted to the place of first assistant, and Miss Mary E. Loud was appointed second assistant.
So the teachers are now Edward Reisler, Principal; Alice McDaniel, First Assistant; Mary E. Loyd, Second Assistant.
In noting the agencies which have had a transforming influence upon Saint Michaels, there must be no omission to refer to the establishment of a public press. In the year 1866, the first number of a small news- paper, intended merely as an advertising medium for its proprietors, called "The Comet" was issued by Messrs. H. C. Dodson and John T. Ford. The name of the paper was designed to be significant of the purpose of its editors and proprietors to issue it at irregular intervals. This diminutive sheet was soon enlarged and appeared weekly. It has continued to be published until the present time. It is now owned and edited by Fayette Gibson, Esq.
As a mark of the improved condition of the people of St. Michaels, the establishment of a Building and Loan Association in the year 1874
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must be noticed. This institution professes to have for its object, primarily, the aiding of men of small incomes, whether from their labor, or from investments, in their efforts to secure homes, by offering to them an opportunity to put at interest their weekly savings, or by lending them money to be returned in weekly installments. Really the Building and Loan Association is a savings bank, where small deposits may be made, and from which money may be borrowed upon the pledge of property. That such an institution should be established at Saint Michaels, and that it should prosper, is a token of improved well being that admits of no question; but a token which fifty years ago would have been thought impossible of presentation by a community of me- chanics, half their time unemployed and of oystermen picking up a bare support from the bars of St. Michaels river.
St. Michaels has also its charitable and benevolent institutions. A Masonic Lodge was held here first in 1857, and continues its meetings. In the year 1870 a large and handsome hall was built on the principal street, which unfortunately the order has not been able to retain, as the debt incurred in its erection was more than a poor and limited mem- bership could discharge. In the year 1846 a Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was instituted, and has ever since maintained its organization. Charitable associations connected with the various churches need not here be noticed.
Politics play so important a part upon every American stage, that some account of them as they were here presented should not be omitted. During the first period of its existence it cannot be said that Saint Michaels had any politics. It is indeed doubtful whether any of its people had the privilege of expressing, even if they had the inclination to form any political opinions. Provincial politics is a subject upon which much obscurity rests that history has not yet dispelled. There is reasonable ground for believing, however, that at the dawn of the second period the people of the town were inspired by the same glowing patriotism that warmed the breast of Matthew Tilghman, to whose expositions of British wrongs, and whose exhortations to resistance they had opportunities to listen, as his home was almost at their doors. They gave evidence that they shared his ardor for independence, by sending some of their numbers as soldiers to the field, and sailors upon the sea. After the establishment of the federal government, and parties had begun to be alligned, it is more than conjectural that a majority of the people of the town adopted the opinions of Mr. Jefferson, the apostle of the people, that is of the working men. Although the county
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was equally divided in sentiment upon the matter of declaring war with Great Britain in 1812, with a preponderance a little in favor of the Federalists, or opposition, there is good ground for believing that the people of the town itself were supporters of the war party or the adminis- tration. They were led by one who was identified with their interests, Col. Spencer. Their ardor was rendered the more intense by the fact that many of their neighbors and friends were seamen and liable to be subjected to impressment, if indeed some were not already on British ships. Later in the war, this ardor was further increased by reports of depredations and outrages by the enemy along the shores of the bay, and indeed upon the bay shore of their own county almost within their own sight. It reached its maximum of intensity when the attack was made upon the town by the British in 1813. As evidence of this feeling, we have an account of a public dinner which was spread in the town on the 4th of July, 1812, and partaken of by both Democrats and Federal- ists. It is said that after participating in a "comfortable entertain- ment" prepared by managers appointed for the purpose, at which Col. Hugh Auld presided, supported by Mr. Nathan Harrington as vice-president. Mr. Samuel Tenant read the Declaration of Independ- ence, and Mr. Alexander Bradford Harrison, the President's message of the 1st of June, and the Declaration of War. These proceedings were followed by an oration by Mr. James Dooris.66 To the oration succeeded toasts to the number of eighteen, all of which were patriotic, but some of which were significant of opinion upon the living political topics: Thus the eighth was this: "The Patriots of the present Congress-whose en- lightened minds, influenced by the spirit of '76, have assumed the neces- sary armour and attitude against the enemies of their country." The ninth, "The lamentable though inevitable War-the last resource of vir- tuous freemen." Tenth: "Commodore Rogers, the brave, whose intrepid spirit in humbling supercilious Britons raised the towering eagle over the crouching Lion-may the freebooting sons of Britain who direct the floating dungeons meet the fate of the Belvidere."67 It must be acknowl- edged these toasts were sufficiently warm to satisfy the taste of the most
66 This Mr. Dooris was a merchant of the town, a democrat in politics, and at this time a member of the Legislature. Being an Irishman by birth, his oration which has been preserved is of that florid and prefervid character which it might be expected to possess, proceeding from a man whose inherited hatred of England for wrongs to his native country had acquired additional intensity from injuries inflicted upon his adopted country. It is a kind of patriotic extravaganza.
67 For an explanation of the illusions recourse must be had to general history.
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fiery Democrats, and in as much as it is said that "perfect unanimity" prevailed, they could not have been unacceptable to the Federalists present, albeit they were opponents of the war. On the 4th of March, 1813, there was another public dinner, in commemoration of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, when only Democratic-Republican gentle- men participated in the repast. Mr. Samuel Tenant was chairman, Mr. Thomas L. Haddaway, vice-chairman, and Mr. James Dooris, secretary. On this occasion too, patriotic and partisan toasts were drunk and cheered. Thus: "Free trade and sailors' rights upon the highway of nations-until this be obtained may spirited resentment be enkindled in the American people, against the pirates of perfidious Britain." And again: "The tories in the United States-a stormy passage for them to Bombay." Query why should tories be consigned to Bombay, rather than to any other port? Was this another name for a hotter place? Again on the 3rd of July of the same year the great national anniversary was celebrated at St. Michaels, by a number of the citizens of the town and vicinity, who, after partaking of an elegant turtle dressed in different ways at Mr. James Harrison's, listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence by the president, Mr. Will Roberts. After this, toasts "were drank, with six, nine, twelve and fifteen cheers." Of these the following will serve to illustrate the tem- per of the convivial patriots. Fifteenth: "The British Rear Admiral Cockburn, a man in person, but a brute in principle. May the Chesa- peake be his watery grave." Sixteenth: "This town of St. Michaels- a place of mechanism. May its nervous sons be ever ready to defend it." The nevous sons had their metal tried after only about one month from this date, for on the morning of the 10th of August the town was attacked by the British, who were handsomely repelled.68 After the close of the war, the parties contending for popular favor, having become equally democratical in their principles and practices, St. Michaels was a field often fought over by the contestants, being lost and won alternately, for the parties were very evenly balanced; but most fre- quently, down to the time when new parties were formed in 1828, the Democrats won the day. In this year, however, the year of the rise of Jacksonism, the Adams or administration ticket was chosen in the St. Michaels district by Adams more than double the Jackson electors. Presumably, St. Michaels gave its quota of this great majority.
68 Of this affair a full and detailed account was printed in the Easton Gazette of May 28th, 1881.
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During the decade succeeding the Jackson campaign of 1828 there was nothing distinctive in the politics of St. Michaels. Most frequently the opposition, under whatsoever name, was successful. In the year 1840, by means of the peculiar agencies or influences which were brought to bear in the campaign of the year, the Democratic supremacy of the two previous years was overcome and the Whig electors were chosen in the St. Michaels district, and by inference, in the town itself. Here was erected one of those curious campaigning structures called a "Log Cabin," with its conspicuous latch string hanging out, its more con- spicuous coonskin nailed to the walls, and its less conspicuous barrel of hard cider (so-called) kept within. It is agreeable to relate that the Log Cabin was converted into a school house, after it had performed duty as a place of assemblage of the Whig politicians and their followers. The death of President Harrison soon after his inauguration in 1841, was the occasion for giving expression to the patriotic feelings of the people of the town and vicinity, with which was mingled the smallest proportion of partisanship. On the 8th of April a public meeting assembled of citizens of both the parties, over which Dr. James Dawson presided, and for which Mr. John Harrington acted as secretary. A committee composed of Mr. Matthew Spencer, Mr. Thomas Tennant, Dr. James Dawson, Mr. John Dunning, and Mr. Nathan Harrington. was appointed to prepare a series of resolutions expressive of the sense of bereavement experienced by the community because of the death of the President. This committee reported resolutions couched in customary phraseology, and recommended that Dr. Joseph Spencer be invited to deliver a suitable sermon. This invitation was accepted, and on the 19th of the month the sermon was delivered in the Episcopal Church. It was subsequently published in pamphlet form. In the great national questions that were agitated in the period from 1840 to 1860 the people of St. Michaels took little more than a languid interest. A ripple upon the quiet surface of society was caused by the admission of Texas into the Union, and the consequent Mexican War. Two mili- tary companies, a troop of horse commanded by Capt. John Harrington and a company of infantry commanded by Capt. William Henry Harri- son, were organized. The disputes respecting the extension or limita- tion of slavery, aroused little sympathy with either of the contending parties in the community where there were few slaves, and where in fact there was much secret repugnance to slavery concealed under pru- dent manifestation or partiality. When the Whig party had com-
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mitted suicide, and other parties arose to take its place in opposition to the Democratic, the American or so-called Know Nothing party found here a constituency whose habits and opinions favored the recep- tion of its principles. In the presidential campaign of 1856, which may be considered as preliminary to the great contest which came off four years later, St. Michaels district, gave the large majority of one hun- dred and thirty-two in a total vote of four hundred and twenty-six to the ticket of the American party, Mr. Filmore being its candidate. All other districts gave a majority for Mr. Buchanan. If we must look for the motives of this vote beyond mere party allegiance we may find them in that prejudice which a secluded people have against for- eigners, and in that antagonism which subsists between the communions of the Methodist and the Romish churches. Besides this the Know Nothing party professed an intense Americanism, which was equally opposed to domestic disorganization and foreign domination. In the year 1860 there were three electoral tickets before the people, and now the American party claimed to be the Union party, par excellence; while it branded the strongest section of the Democratic party, in this county, as the Disunion party, and complimented the friends of Mr. Douglas as the Union Democrats. When the vote was taken, St. Michaels district was found to have given the Bell and Everett, or Union candidates a majority over the other two tickets combined of one hundred and eleven votes. When the war broke out, this town was very pronounced and decided in its adherence to the government, and its loyalty was maintained to the end. In another contribution the stir- ring events, the opinions, the passions of the war of the Rebellion in Talbot, including this loyal town of St. Michaels will be given, but one incident may here be noted. When too many of the officers of the army and navy were surrendering their commissions and arraying themselves on the side of the insurgents, it was doubtful what position Mr. John N. Hambleton, Purser of the Navy, who was on a distant station, would assume upon his return. Mr. Hambleton lived at the Cabin farm adjoining the town. When it became known that he had returned to his home, and that he was steadfast in his allegiance to his country, a large number of the citizens of St. Michaels went out to his house, and calling this modest and undemonstrative gentleman to his door received from his own lips assurances of his unshaken loyalty, in a speech the longest his remarkable diffidence had ever enabled him to utter. Whereupon several of the citizens approached him, and,
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amidst the cheers of their companions wrapped him in the folds of the American flag, as the most fitting decoration of a true citizen of the. republic.69
Before completing this subject some matters of purely local politics must receive attention, for they engaged the attention of the people of the town more entirely than the momentous issues which divided the great parties upon state and national affairs. At or about the time, as has been noted, when the oyster industry received its great impulse from the opening of the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, there arose questions that had peculiar interest for most of the citizens of St. Mi- chaels, namely, those that relate to the protection and preservation of the oysters and the extrusion from the oyster grounds of interlopers from adjoining states. These questions have continued vital to the present time, and they are discussed by the local politicians and the local press with an earnestness which only a direct personal interest in them could awaken, and with an ability which only the concentration of thought upon a single subject could develop. Another matter a little later, received much attention from the people, and affected their local politics. After the introduction of public schools, there arose differences as to the merits and qualifications of the teachers, and con- tests in the election of school trustees were very animated. This interest in the school elections continued down to the time when the people were deprived of all control of their schools by the law of 1865 and those laws which were made to supercede this first general law. That
69 An amusing incident of this occasion shows that the ridiculous is not one step nearer to the sublime, according to the Napoleonic adage, than bathos is to pathos. Mr. Hambleton invited the exultant citizens into his house, where he offered them wines and other liquors, in which they pledged the success of the federal arms and the perpetuation of the Union with hearty sincerity and much effusiveness of patriotic sentiment. One person however was seen to avoid drink- ing, although known to be one of the most ardent supporters of the government. With much good natured banter he was urged by his companions to disregard his temperate habits for once; but neither this nor the polite invitation of Mr. Ham- bleton could induce him to violate his rule of conduct. That he might not seem, however, to be wanting in either patriotism, or in courtesy to the excellent gen- tleman who he came out to honor, and who was now entertaining him, he finally said: "I cannot drink liquor, but if Mr. Hambleton has a pan of bonny-clabber, I will take a little of that instead." It is hardly necessary to say the pan of bonny- clabber was produced by Miss Lydia Hambleton, long the mistress of the house, and, be it said to the revered memory of this truly excellent woman, long the ministering angel to the poor of the town; and thus, one man, at least, went home from the cabin entirely sober.
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there were evils attending the system of electing school officers, there is no doubt; but it is hardly less questionable that the removal of the schools wholly from the control of the people, has had a tendency to impair their efficiency. As parties in a state or nation when they can no longer divide upon some great question of public policy decline to the condition of mere bands following their principal leaders, whose personal fitness or unfitness for office is discussed with even more earnest- ness than any political issue, and whose elevation or exclusion from power is thought to be of more vital importance, if warmth of advocacy or denunciation be the measure of real sentiment, than the success or defeat of any measure of government; so with parties in municipalities and corporations, and so with parties in this town. When the school law for Talbot county, in the absence of any general law, had been settled beyond fear of further disturbance by meddlers, a result not effected but by much effort and a deal of discussion, this community of St. Michaels divided upon the merits and demerits of a single individual as a teacher. Annually for twelve or fifteen years it was distracted by the question whether Mr. James B. Way should be retained as a teacher of the public school or dismissed. This man was born in Philadelphia and had enjoyed a good social position, as his manners indicated. He had possessed considerable means which he had squandered. He had married respectably, but had deserted his wife, though he was very partial and not disagreeable to other men's wives. He came to St. Michaels directly from Caroline county, in, or about 1839, introduced by most respectable gentlemen, and was duly installed as teacher. It was not long however before doubts of his fitness began to be whispered and then boldly expressed. These doubts were based more upon alleged moral delinquencies than tutorial deficiencies. But on the other hand, Mr. Way by his agreeable manners had made himself very acceptable to a considerable number of the parents, and was very especially beloved by the pupils of his school. It would be, perhaps, unjust to the memory of the dead man, who is still remembered kindly by many whom he taught, and it might wound the sensibilities of some of his old and attached friends-it might not even be agreeable to some of his enemies- if any particular relation should be made to the grounds of the contro- versy which long raged with so much intensity in this little community. Mr. Way was placed or displaced alternately as his party was successful in the election of trustees of the school district; for he was not dis- couraged by defeat, but was a standing applicant during life for the place of the teacher. He wore always, when not in office-even during
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the intervals when he was not a resident of the town-the white robe of candidacy, and though this seemed somewhat besmirched, the par- tiality of friends called those gauds which his enemies called stains. This contest long continued, so that at this day, with our imperfect lights, we do not know whether to regard the constancy of his friends as an evidence of his possessing some merit, or of their possessing great good nature; nor do we know whether to look upon the equal constancy of his enemies as proof of his worthlessness or of their obstinacy. How- ever, death, the great umpire, finally settled the matter by the removal of Mr. Way, Jan. 15th, 1853. He is buried at Saint Michaels, where steps have been taken by some of his former pupils to mark his grave with some memorial stone. Charity will incline us to believe that whatever they may inscribe upon it will not be less true than those epitaphs which affection writes upon stones of its kind everywhere. What is here said of him, it was thought, might be said with propriety of one who if not an admirable, was a notable character of the town for many years.
Another local question has long been agitated in this community. It is one of which the issue lies between economy and humanity upon the one part and health and comfort upon the other. The original charter forbade the running at large of geese and swine, but did not prohibit the keeping them within inclosures. With the growth of the town, and with the improvement of the condition of its people, a party arose, which objected to the pig-pens that had increased in numbers and offensiveness with the increase of population. With the reorganiza- tion of the town in 1848 this party took shape, and attempts were made to secure an ordinance to abate a nuisance which some thought intoler- able. The custom of feeding the sty pigs upon fish, otherwise useless, and upon king crabs, the common limulus, added to the virulence of the odors that ordinarily emanate from the places where these animals are fed and gave to the atmosphere of the town in summer a nauseous unctuousness that seemed to nourish disease. But those who pleaded for comfort and health were met by those who pleaded for the interests of the poor and dependent, who denied the unwholesomeness of the effluvia, who claimed that if the health of the community was impaired, it was in some inappreciable degree, and this was not to be weighed when the very means of life of many were dependent upon the produce of their sties; and who thought it a mere matter of opinion which cus- tom may modify, whether pig pens are or are not offensive. It is creditable to the goodness, but not to the wisdom of human nature,
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